Luke 3:17 Commentary and Bible Study

All three of these verses 10-12 speak of separation. The axe is laid to the root and some trees are cut down, while others are allowed to continue to grow; Christ baptizes some with the Holy Spirit, while others are immersed in fire; and now here, the grain of the wheat is separated from the chaff. Christ will thoroughly purge and cleanse his threshing floor. It is a picture of a farmer who is about to handle the harvest material. It is the time of year when the joyful work of harvest is about to begin. All old products of former harvests will be cleaned away and the floor swept. The wheat has grown in the field, it has been allowed to ripen, it has been harvested, and now the more valuable part, the actual grain, must be separated from the chaff and the straw. The chaff is everything that is not the nutritious grain: the husk around the grain and the other stemmy parts of the wheat plant. The grain will be used to make flour, but the chaff will be burnt. The separation process takes advantage of the fact that the grain is heavier than the chaff. The whole harvest is beaten to shake out the grain, and then all is tossed into the air with a winnowing fork or shovel in a place where there is a cross wind blowing. The air carries the light chaff some distance away but the heavier grain falls to the ground more quickly, and this simple but ancient practice separates the two in a way which would otherwise be very difficult to do. The farmer does not want the chaff mixed with the wheat, both because it is not edible to man and because it takes up space reserved for the more precious wheat.God’s arrangement with a single nation, Israel, is about to end, and the New Testament church is about to begin. Judaism has served its purpose, but it was never intended to last. It has been used to show the wilful unbelief that is in the human heart, to illustrate God’s dealings with his church in typical fashion, to preserve his word given across multiple generations, and to be the ethnic group from which the Messiah would come. But just as the types must fade like stars when the sun comes up, so, now that Christ has come, the people of God must be a regenerate people and no longer a mixed multitude. What will happen to those who have taken advantage of the shadows to secure positions of power and honour for themselves, and who never really wanted the fulfilment of those shadows? They will be set aside like the chaff which has done its work and be burned with fire.